Week 20 Day 5 Keep Your Friends Close...

And Your Enemies Closer...

I Samuel 18-20

This is a story of friends and enemies.

The story starts and ends with friendship.

The friendship between David and Jonathan. 

Jonathan would have every right in the world to be leery of David, jealous of David, even hostile to David.

David is doing great things, all in the name of the LORD.

But Jonathan is heir to the throne.

And in many ways, David is a threat to that.

But guess what?

Jonathan doesn't care.

He truly loves David.

They are friends, BFF's, best buds, brothers of the soul.

I think female friendships are neat.  I know some very tight "girl friends".  And they would go to the end of the earth for each other. In fact, we read stories all of the time about those kinds of friendships.

But male friendships are special too.

They tend to not be as showy, as obvious, as "out there" in the public eye as female friendships.  (If you don't believe me, just peruse Facebook for a while :)

But those true friendships are deep. 

The kind that cut to the very core of who they are.

That was what Jonathan and David had.

Meanwhile, there is the enemy side.

Saul.

He starts keeping David very close to him just to keep tabs on him.

He is keeping his enemy closer.

So much so that he appoints him higher ranking in the army, gives his daughter in marriage to him, and continues to have David play music for him.

Even if he throws an occasional spear at him.

You see, David has done nothing to Saul.

In fact, he is a fairly humble guy.

But God is with David.

He is not with Saul.

And Saul knows it.

Jealousy starts small and festers and festers until it takes over Saul's every thought, every action, every word.

At one point, he can't even contain his envy.

He tells his own son that he plans to kill David, his son's very best friend.

And that is where today's story ends.

Jonathan is forced to say good-bye to the one true friend he has.  All because of a jealous dad.

The good news with friendship though is that miles and years apart don't end a friendship.

True friendship withstands the test of time.

Again and again.

Reba
Tomorrow's reading:
I Samuel 21-22